I could definitely picture re-watching Ryan McGonagle’s “Black Pumpkin” down the line. If anything it’s so bathed in Halloween ephemera that it’s a decent bit of background sounds for the respective Halloween geek. What holds it back though is that there seems to be so much behind the narrative that we’re not informed on, thus there feels like a big chunk of the intend narrative is either cut out or missing. That’s due to the fact that “Black Pumpkin” is technically a sequel to the 2016 movie “Bloody Bobby,” later-released in 2021 as “The Legend of Fall Creek.”
So, it’s a sequel—kind of. But not really…?
Elliot (Dogen Eyeler) and his friend Laurence aka Pork Chop (Grayson Thorne Kilpatrick) accidentally awaken Bloody Bobby after going into Devil’s Den to film something for a school project. As Halloween comes around, Bloody Bobby rises and targets the two kids, Elliot’s sister Laurie (Ellie Patrikios), her friends and some partying people in the woods. However, someone has been waiting for Bloody Bobby to return, someone who has had dealings with the evil before.
In either case, much of “Black Pumpkin” feels missing, so a lot of important information is left out. This leaves so much of the events that unfold to feel inexplicable and random. Does the horror host who pops up on TV indicate the arrival of Bloody Bobby? If so, how does he do it? What’s his connection? And what is Bloody Bobby exactly? Is he an avenging angel or a guardian of Halloween a la Sam from “Trick r Treat”? In either case, Bloody Bobby has a neat design to him, and his violent streak matched with his mischievous nature make him a fun villain.
There’s just not a lot of material to dig in to with this established mythology. “Black Pumpkin” is essentially a slasher film with teens getting slaughtered on Halloween, and while normally that’s fun, here it feels like Bloody Bobby is wasting his potential. In either case, “Black Pumpkin” does have spontaneous bursts of fun, and neat kills. For fans of comedian Matt Rife, he even appears here as the boyfriend of protagonist Laurie. For all intents and purposes, “Black Pumpkin” is a perfectly serviceable Halloween themed horror film. It’s not perfect, but it kept my attention enough to inspire me to dig deeper in to the legend of Bloody Bobby.